[homeland221]

You forgot twch recession is picking up momentum everywhere. Majority of programming job can be done remotely. Even EM cut to only 10%, he can up the remaining salary double, and programmer can increase output productivity easily x2 with those hardcore 10% left. 3 decades of HR experience back this fact easily especially money is no problem. For EM, money is no problem. I am willing to bet $10K with you on this issue that EM will make it through woth all those fired and let go.

[woodruffw]

No, you can't increase your overall productivity after cutting 80% of your workforce. You might increase individual engineer productivity slightly by paying them boatloads of money, but you're still saddling them with the gargantuan passive tasks required to maintain the site. That alone eats any productivity gains, while also burning your "hardcore" people out.

[homeland221]

You can. It is called outsourcing. Seen it. Done it. Everytime, productivity increased! It os only when employees retaliate and government intervention then there is some cost involved to mitigate that. But still productivity is high (as in using the same amount of money to get more widgets and revenue in the same amount of time). You might be young say under 30s. Look back since the Nafta treaty signed in the 90s. There is enough evidence to back me on this productivity/revenue increase for the companies. For American, of course painful layoff.

[woodruffw]

This is completely orthogonal: the reason companies outsource is to purchase more labor for the same price.

There are plenty of industries where the economic envelope favors cheap human labor. But this in no way implies that you can cut 80% of your staff and get the remaining 20% to do both their own work and everyone else’s.

[kaashif]

> No, you can't increase your overall productivity after cutting 80% of your workforce. You might increase individual engineer productivity slightly

Labour productivity is already a per worker measure. I've never heard it used to refer to anything else.

That seems to be what they're referring to when they say they can increase productivity by cutting workers and working the rest much harder.

I'm pretty sure that's bullshit and the sheer amount just daily maintenance and fire fighting will annihilate any possible productivity gains, so I agree with you.

[homeland221]

Yes you talked about economic definition. You are 100% right....as right as Paul Volcker with his economic theory. But at corporate c level we discuse productivity with another unit attached....money.

[jsnell]

There is no indication of Musk increasing compensation. His retention plan seems to be based on the assumption that the top engineers are attracted to his cult of personality, not to pay them better. (Or to even pay them competitively; anecdotally it seems that the senior engineers leaving Twitter have been getting significantly higher comp in their new roles.)